Hunterville (Zero Day)

I was undecided last night whether to go on today and I woke this morning to rain, and that tipped the scale to me staying and having a zero day today. I think I needed it because I fell back asleep and slept until almost 9:00 am and it felt good.

The temperature has dropped and it was in the low forties in the morning and never got over the low fifties. My room doesn’t have a heater,and there are huge gapes around the door, and i could see my breath this morning. I asked the owner if he had a heater and he gave me a small oil radiator heater that I plugged into the only one electrical plug in the room that is shared with the night lamp.

I spent most of the morning laying in bed and reading, which was great. I walked to one of the two cafes in town and got some lunch, and then walked around town in about fifteen minutes as it’s just a tiny town. I actually found a very nice park, Queens Park, on the same street as the hotel, a block away, that has public bathrooms and is designated for motorhome/trailer camping, and also tent camping. I had walked by it when first got here and had not noticed it, but if I had seen it I probably would have camped there.

About 5:00 I went to the other cafe to have dinner but it, along with every other business, was closed. The town looked like a ghost town and luckily the first cafe was still open until 6:00 and I had dinner there.

Later in the evening I went into the bar at the hotel to download a few movies since it was the only place with WiFi and I spent a few hours just people watching. Some of the locals were there since it was Saturday night. I was told by the bartender, as she glanced around, that they were mostly farmers and a few truck drivers. Her husband also ran a farm.

About 8:00 a huge crowd of young sweaty and dirty looking guys came in from playing a local rugby game. At first I thought, foolishly, that it was going to be a rowdy crowd, but they were all very cheerful and friendly guys. I could not help but be myself and asked the millions of questions I always have about people and places, etc.? They were a team from Tathape (26 miles north), with men ages 18 to about 32, mostly local farmers, sheep shearers, truck drivers, and other regular working stiffs (their term), in a club of about forty men divined into two teams. They played against a team from a town south of here and were on their way home and stopped to have a beer. The young guy I talked to was bouncing from talking to singing, with a beautiful voice, much of the time. He played on both teams, both the A team (better players) and the B team. Short stocky looking guy, built like a small squat tank. I never asked if they won their games but from the jubilation and singing I don’t think it would have mattered.

It always surprises me, not how often I am recognized as an American by my accent, but how friendly people are once they recognize me as an American. It’s always where in the States are you from? And it always surprise me how many people say they have been to the States, and so many have been to California. Sorry if I make this assumption Kiwis, but I think Kiwis like Americans. But then again, it seems to be in their culture to be friendly.

For me sitting in the bar listening and seeing this little pocket of New Zealand culture is what trekking for me is all about. I really love it! How else could you really see this if you weren’t walking the road and stopping in such small town because you were tired, and then ending up in an old 1800s hotel on a side street off the beaten path. You surely wouldn’t see it driving through at 100 kph (62 mph).

One beer over all those hours was enough for me, and even as the jubilation was going on it was why past by bedtime of 9:00 and I went back to my warm room to crawl into a nice bed and to read my book.

Tomorrow poses another dilemma for me, as stopping here may force me to take more zero days. The forecast is for rain, heavy at times, for the next two days. There are no accommodations between here and Taihape, 26-28 miles away. That would mean I’d have to possibly walk in the rain (if it’s not raining in the morning), and pitch my tent in the rain. Then the next morning I would only pack up if it was not raining, and if it was, I would have to holdup in the tent until the next day.

The forecast is for rain the next two days, then clear for the next two days after that, which would give me time to trek to Taihape. Then it is suppose to rain the two or three days after that again! Those mythological weather gods just don’t want to make it easy for me near the end of my time here.

I’ll sleep on it and make my decision in the morning.

Best wishes to all,

Ted

Please excuse the typos, spelling, grammar, etc., as I am typing this on my phone, and I am probably pretty tired.